


Max Danger

by Blue_Hood



Category: Incorruptible (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Parents, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Canonical Character Death, Family, Family Bonding, Gen, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Kid Fic, Parent-Child Relationship, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23179288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Hood/pseuds/Blue_Hood
Summary: Max Damage unknowingly had a son after getting his powers.
Relationships: Max Damage/Jailbait





	1. Meet Max

“Push.”

“I am pushing, you f*****. Max Damage is the father, idiot.” A baby begins to wail, “S***. F***.”

Years Later

Max Danger’s powers were stronger than his father's but his mission matched his father's, destroying the Plutonian. He interrupted the other heroes’ attempt to recruit Survivor’s brother. When Survivor showed up, he was defeated by a teenager but the battle was loud enough to attract the Plutonian. As Max battled the Plutonian he mouthed off, calling Survivor a warm-up. Max backed up his mouth by nearly killing the Plutonian in battle while he got stronger from sleep deprivation. He turned to the heroes and promised he’d explain everything later before asking them to take him to a location in Asia. Dragging the Plutonian along for the ride, he threw the God-like being at his creators. “This is your fault, depower him and leave our universe in peace. No compromise.”

The duo looked between the man they made by mistake and the boy born of his greatest enemy. After a brief conference, one of the aliens said “We're afraid he has grown beyond our power to alter him.”

“He snapped, can you mend his mind?”

Another brief conversation, this one in looks, and the answer came “We apologize for the trouble he has caused,”

“He is your creation, all three of you are murderers. Either fix him, depower him or give me your power and I'll do it for you so you can get the Hell out of here.”

The cosmic being that had thus far been silent spoke, she clarified “You understand that this power is great and perhaps even addictive?”

“You are his mother. You abandoned him to be raised by humans who could never handle, much less care for a child with the power you gave him. You damn this world and I want to save it, I want to save them.”

They asked “Who?”

Max Danger steeled himself “Either give me the power or use it yourself. I already beat your monster.”

“Fine.” As one, the two gigantic cosmic beings blasted Max and filled him with power. He turned to the Plutonian and used his new power to delve into the monster's mind, altering first his memories to normalize his upbringing then brainwashing him to give his powers an off-switch. He slowly floated into the sky and spread his arms wide, absorbing the radiation from the two cosmic beings. Seeing himself flying upon opening his eyes, he took off. First, he fixed Coalville then systematically spread out from his hometown until he'd covered the world. Once he was done, he landed in front of the remaining heroes “What now?”

The Paradigm looked at each other before Gilgamos asked “What exactly did you just do?”

Max answered “I rewired his memories to give him a normal childhood instead of that pinball game the foster system played on him, I based it off his memories of the foster father that came up with his codename. The lack of powers in his false memories enabled me to build in an off switch, one he will never be able to access to trigger his powers as I buried it in the memories he no longer has. The two glowing giants released toxic radiation into the world when they were released from that facility where they'd spent most of their son's life, I absorbed it. When I realized I was flying, I figured my powers are kinda like his so I went through and did my best to repair the damage. I started with Coalville and worked my way outwards. Then I came back. And, uh, yeah. Oh, uh, to be clear, I don't want these powers. I don't really like mine but I couldn't let him keep going, I had to stop him.”

“What's your name?”

“Legally, it's Max Damage Junior. I'm just gonna assume my mother didn't know my father's real name. Honestly, I'm not gonna really change it except for the Damage Junior. More because I don't wanna be called junior than anything so I'm thinking Max Danger or something like that, I don't know.”

Qubit said “You're Max Damage's son?”

“Who else is invulnerable and super strong? I'm a medical miracle because being invulnerable, close as I can figure, means he shouldn't be able to have kids. He's always complaining that he lives with two senses instead of five, which is true, we do. Downside of total invulnerability is it leaves you with just sight and hearing instead of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.” He looked down at the dazed man, “We should probably get him into some normal clothes if this brainwashing is gonna work.” Looking back up, he ignored their jump as they remembered their former friend's presence “What are you going to do with the other guy? Was that Scylla or Charybdis?”

Qubit answered “Charybdis. He goes by Survivor now since Scylla died.”

“That explains the new get up. Is there somewhere we can go? I'd really like to meet my parents.”

Qubit nodded “Grab him, we'll pick up Survivor and head to Coalville.” Max nodded and picked up the barely conscious turncoat. Gil picked up Survivor and they continued to the outskirts of Coalville, “Hey Max!”

With a sigh, Max Damage jumped off the roof of his personal prison and landed in front of them. Max Danger wasted no time dropping his load and walking right up to his father “How come mom never knew your real name? She named me Max Damage Junior, which is the only thing she did for me.”

Max Damage looked surprised. When he regained his composure, he said “You’re my son?”

Max Danger nodded and stepped aside “I did what you always wanted to do.”

Damage looked at the Paradigm until his eyes landed on Gil's load “How?”

“After some sleep deprivation, I fought Survivor, loudly. Plutonian showed up and I kept him on the ground with my hits while I kept moving. Combine my momentum and super strength with surprise on his part for the win. I got charged with a lot of extra power from a close encounter with his parents. I hope they weren't the last of their kind, I got enough trouble with the powers I inherited from you. I rebuilt from the ruins for everybody while I was on a power high. Think we got any family left?”

Max stared, still adjusting to the fact that he's a father “I gotta go get your mom.”

Max grabbed his arm before Evan could get much strength behind his escape “I called her that for your convenience. She abandoned me as soon as she named me. I want to get to know you. If she's more than an arm's length away, she's as good as dead. I learned that the hard way.”

Max Damage froze in his tracks and stopped trying to leave. “Paradigm, leave. Son, in.” He led his son inside his home. “Evan Cousins, that’s my real name.”

“So my name is Max Cousins?”

“Yeah.”


	2. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry if the characters are a bit OOC but it’s been awhile since I’ve read Irredeemable/Incorruptible

The next day they head into Coalville and people can’t stop staring at Max as they go into St. Lucifer’s club to see Jailbait. “Why didn’t you tell me we had a kid?”

“I thought he was dead.” She looked at the boy, shock showing on her face “I passed out after giving birth and when I woke up they told me the baby was stillborn.”

“Who’s they?”

Max slapped his father’s shoulder and pointed at three men in suits entering the bar. He’s suddenly glad they waited over an hour after waking up to come into town, using the time to wash his clothes since he didn’t have anything to change into. Max Damage looked at them “You took my son?”

“Yes and we’re taking him back.”

The lead man tried to give the reformed supervillain a legal document but Qubit and the Paradigm interrupted. The genius handed the agent an envelope “You are all hereby under arrest for, among other things, kidnapping and human experimentation.” They tried to shoot the group but their shots were deflected off a forcefield, killing them. “I wonder if the federal agents are having any more luck.” Qubit handed Max Damage another envelope “All of your son’s legal documentation. You’ve also been invited to the White House.”

His son said “Told ya so.”

Jailbait asked her son “What exactly did you tell him?”

“I bet he’d get a pardon for his heroics.”

“Huh?”

He asked his dad, “Can I punch him?” pointing at St. Lucifer.

Damage shook his head “No, he’s mine.”

“You’re just cranky ‘cause you didn’t get to punch the suits.”

“Yeah.” The fight’s over before it began despite St. Lucifer siccing his lackey on the pair, which turned into a trio when Jailbait joined them.

Danger laughed at the look on the man’s face even as Armadale’s men dragged them all away. Then he turned to the Paradigm with his parents, Damage asked “What are the chances you can undo whatever Plutonian’s creators did to my son?”

“I need to know how your powers work.”

Danger put a hand on his father’s arm “He means scientifically.”

Damage cursed and the Paradigm gave him strange looks- they couldn’t decide if they should scold him or not. “I have no idea. Guy who gave me my powers never successfully made another super.”

“Okay. We’ll need to run some tests,” Damage glared, “And read your son’s file because I’m betting he wasn’t spared the experimentation. Maybe we could just use his file.”

Danger took a running jump at his father, “It’s done, it’s over.” He smacked the man for good measure and nobody can quite believe what they’re seeing.

Qubit said “I’m gonna get to work on those files, we’ll let you know when the White House has a time for you.”

Damage nodded and asked “Can you transport us anywhere, the way you-” he waved at the place they appeared.

“Yeah. Where do you want to go?”

Danger’s eyes lit “Grandparents?”

Damage nodded and walked up to Qubit, ignoring the boy hanging off of him, to give him an address. Danger dropped down and ran to the employee locker room, rifling through until he found a shirt that might fit his mom then ran out to give it to her. Jailbait looked at Max with a raised eyebrow as she put it on and he nodded, his mother will want to meet Max’s mother if she’s still alive. Surprisingly, both Cousins are alive and they welcome him. His father even seemed proud while his mother instantly fell in love with her grandson, though both gave him a disapproving look when they realized that Terri was quite a few years shy of legal when his son was born. The couple stole away a few minutes after Evan got his mom to rope his dad into some quality time with their grandson, “What’s his name?”

“What?”

“Our son, we need to decide on a full name.”

“Max is pretty set since you introduced him as that and Cousins is obviously his last name, usually kids take their father’s last name.”

“Middle name?”

“You don’t have an opinion.”

“I’m not really creative, ‘case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Neither am I.”

Mr. Cousins caught them arguing “The boy doesn’t even have a full name.”

Terri said “Because of Evan’s powers, our son was kidnapped as an infant by people who wanted their own Max Damage and I was told the baby was stillborn. We just found out the truth today and Evan decided it was as good a time as any to introduce you.”

“I see.” His father had a thoughtful look on his face, “How about Carter?”

“Max Carter Cousins,” said Evan with a shrug.

Terri said “I don’t have any better ideas. Why Carter?”

“Evan’s best friend growing up was named Katy.”

“And Carter is close enough for a boy’s name to say he was named after his dad’s best friend.”

“Exactly.”

They rejoined Mrs. Cousins who was regaling her grandson with stories about all of the trouble his dad got up to as a boy. Evan interrupted “The Wolf Boy grew up to be the Plutonian.” His parents looked at him then each other before accepting that as things clicked into place. They had watched their son struggle to be a father while the girl, the mother tried to follow his lead. Taking pity on him, his parents tried to help him hit his stride over the week that followed, tried to give him advice and lead by example- using Max as a second chance.


	3. DC

A few days after Max defeated Plutonian, Qubit stopped by the Cousins’ residence to secure a DNA sample from his parents. His father explained that nothing could penetrate his skin due to his powers and took the needle, promising to take the sample when his powers weren’t so strong. The next day, he turned over the needle. A week after they left Coalville, Qubit called ahead to tell them he would be coming over to take them to the White House, after taking the unwanted power from Max. His grandparents looked so proud when they heard their son had a meeting at the White House, even after he explained it was for a pardon. Grandpa Cousins said “I think it’s about more than the pardon. They could probably mail a pardon and Qubit wouldn’t be escorting you there if that was it.”

“Still gotta suit up.”

Grandma Cousins had taken one look at Max, shot a disapproving look at Evan then took them both along with Terri to get proper clothes, nevermind Evan was still pretty infamous. She did not seem happy about Evan and Max putting those biker clothes on but at least, Terri had taken the time to make her uniform a bit less revealing and changed her codename to Xena because “Jailbait doesn’t work for a hero name, Max; I mean Evan, God this is confusing.”

Max had then asked his father “Would it be better if I shortened mine to Danger instead of using my real name?”

Evan had nodded and said “We’ll figure something out.”

They were waiting when Qubit showed up with a leather jacket, which he promptly gave to Max. “Just a smaller, more durable version of your father’s that I think you should wear. Impact is absorbed and transferred to the wearer without visible damage.”

“Awesome. Thanks.”

“Now,” Qubit addressed Terri and Evan “Since he’s a minor, I need both his and your consent for this experimental procedure.”

Evan asked “Are you sure it won’t take all of his power?”

“I’m essentially resetting his DNA so anything that isn’t a natural part of him will be rejected but to do that, I had to make the machine able to withstand you at average strength. He’ll be held down as the extra power leaves his system.” Qubit admitted “That might affect his power but he should be safe.”

Terri said “If you gave us 24 hours, we could be sure of that because we would’ve had time to make sure his power built up.”

“Apologies.” Q said “I can’t do this without your consent so if you want to wait, that’s your right.”

Evan asked “Will waiting change his odds?”

“Yes. There’s a chance that the added power has already begun to metabolize and that, with more time, it will continue to do so. The sooner we act, the less harmful it will be to remove.”

Evan shared a look with Terri before saying “If something goes wrong, we’re rescheduling with the White House.”

“Fair.” Q turned to Max “Do I still have your permission to do this?”

“Just one time, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Then yeah.”

They all left after that, vanishing before their elders’ eyes. At what the family of three could only assume was the Paradigm’s base, Qubit led them to a machine which had restraints and glowed. Danger hopped up and let Q put the cuffs on before inhaling a gas which caused him to convulse as the glow grew brighter “The machine is absorbing the extra-power. I read Max’s entire file, an automatic shut-off will be triggered if his vitals escape normal range and the gas will be replaced with a simple sedative that probably won’t do anything.” Damage wanted to punch something; distantly he is aware that the impulse is due to feeling helpless; but the convulsions level out. “I hate to break it to you but that’s his body adapting. He’ll probably start up again when the power boosts begin to leave his system.” They stood there for hours, anger building as they watched their son cycle through various responses to Qubit’s machine before the glow began to subside and the mask was removed once a scan confirmed the procedure was a success. Damage scooped his son up while Xena glared at Qubit. “We still have an hour or so before the meeting. I’d like to formally invite you to join the Paradigm, both of you.”

Damage looked at him, anger burning in his eyes before Danger hugged him tighter and his mother saw her boy was awake. Keiko intervened “Now is not the time to make that offer, Q.” She led him away while the family settled down, Damage sat on the edge of the machine.

In the end, they went ahead with the meeting, Danger told Qubit about their new codenames when his parents asked about their ride to DC. Q passed it along to the White House and asked again “Would you like to join our team?”   
“Let’s wait until we got a handle on parenting before committing to something like that,” said Max Damage sensibly.

The press ate up that decision with Danger coming out on stage at the conference to stand by his parents. One thing Max Damage never had was tact so once he got going, he didn’t know when to quit or so people thought. Qubit saw through it, Max Damage told the whole country the truth about what happened to his son and others like him, he was exposing the scandal on purpose in hopes of protecting others. He told them precisely how the Plutonian came about and how he ended, exposing the cause of the nuclear meltdown. He accepted his pardon and promised to put his family first, the people of Coalville second and let everything else fall into line somewhere after that. Getting him on the team would be an upgrade of sorts from the days when the Plutonian played the hero. The family of three went home to the base Max Damage built and immediately got in touch with his parents to give them contact information. Damage asked Qubit “You need something?”

“I just want to clarify something. You will consider joining the Paradigm in the future, right?”

“Your team needs to be reworked, Plutonian never shoulda been able to divide and conquer as much as he did. You also need to go public with the whole story, a secret getting out is how this all started.”

“Alright.”   
“And I will never replace the Plutonian the way you want me to.”

“That obvious?”

“A bit.” Damage said “We’ll talk some more after I’ve had some time to really adjust.” He smiled a bit “You’re a genius. Think the city will pay me to be it’s hero?”

“Yeah, I think you could get a deal with the police through your Lieutenant friend.”

“Thanks, now get out.”

Q stopped at the door, deciding to trust the family with some secret identities, “Just in case another one of us goes rogue, I think there should be someone on the outside to set us straight.” He continued out.

Terri asked “Is it just me or was that weird?”

“Not just you,” said Max. “I’m going to bed.” He went into one of the cells.

Panicking, his father called Armadale to ask “Charlie Hustle?”

“In custody. I saw your little performance on the news and I’d like to ask you to come in tomorrow to speak with some city leaders.”

“Yeah. I’ll be in.” He hung up and asked Terri “Any chance I can get you to finish your GED?”

“Maybe.” She smiled “It’ll be good for Max to have one parent who’s not a drop out.”

“We’ll see what the city leaders that Armadale wants me to meet with say. If I can make a job of this then we’ll both go to night school.”

“As you keep reminding me, I’m not an adult yet. I can just go back to high school and you can do night school.”

“Deal.”

Terri realized that she’d just promised to finish high school and swore, fluently, before telling Evan “We need to properly convert those cells if Max is gonna use one as a bedroom.”

“Agreed.” The look he gave kept her from pushing her luck. They had left Max’s clothes at the Paradigm base and made a quick stop to pick them up on the way back from DC.


End file.
